Flyers Come Out Swinging But Knocked Out by Penguins in Game 3

BOX SCORE

Two Penguins goals in five seconds doomed the Flyers, as Pittsburgh easily took Game 3, 5-1, Sunday evening at the Wells Fargo Center.

The Penguins connected for three power-play goals as Derick Brassard, Evgeni Malkin and Justin Schultz scored. The Penguins lead the series, 2-1.

Sidney Crosby, following his Game 1 hat trick, recorded his second three-point game of the series. He had a goal and three assists. Crosby now has seven points (four goals, three assists) in the series.

Travis Sanheim scored his first career postseason goal at 13:42 of the second period.

Pittsburgh has scored five or more goals in six of the seven games against the Flyers, including the regular and postseason.

Philadelphia Flyers

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The series stays in Philadelphia with Game 4 on Wednesday night (7 p.m./NBCSP).

β€’ The Flyers fed off the energy of a sold-out Wells Fargo Center and came out buzzing in the first 20 minutes. Not only did they outshoot the Pens, 11-4, in the first period, but they almost had the same number of quality scoring chances as the game was played nearly exclusively in the Penguins' end.

Penguins goalie Matt Murray was the difference maker, as he made some spectacular saves with his best coming on a glove save on a Nolan Patrick breakaway. If not for Murray, the Flyers could have led 3-0 after one. Murray finished with 26 saves.

β€’ The Flyers left all the first-period momentum in the locker room after committing some untimely penalties early in the second period. Claude Giroux was whistled for slashing on Crosby and Jakub Voracek caught Conor Sheary with a hook and a high stick. In all, the Flyers were whistled for five stick infractions, which set the Penguins up perfectly.

β€’ Pittsburgh capitalized on three power plays as the Flyers played with fire - and were burnt. Facing the most successful PP in Penguins history, a unit that finished No. 1 in the NHL, it was only a matter of time. The Pens' power play had the Flyers' penalty killers backed in on their first goal, with Brassard firing a near-unstoppable shot and Malkin uncorking a one-time to beat Brian Elliott on their second PP goal.

β€’ All it took was two goals in five seconds for the Penguins to put this game out of reach, tying the NHL record for the fastest two goals in postseason history.

The second goal was set up by Crosby's impressive faceoff win against Giroux, not only winning the draw cleanly but maintaining possession and feeding defenseman Brian Dumoulin in the slot for a shot that Elliott needed to stop. That goal gave the Penguins a 4-0 lead, which completely sucked the life out of the Wells Fargo Center.

β€’ Playing off the emotions of the crowd, tempers between the teams were apparent early on, which the Flyers fed off more than the Penguins. It was the first time in this series where raw emotion took over in the first five minutes and the Flyers channeled that into a strong opening period.

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